This invention relates to a display device for a compact disc player capable of displaying character information and, optionally image information in addition thereto, concerning information about music such as the title, name of the composer or performer. The invention relates also to a Compact Disc having novel Q subcoding data for displaying such character or image information. The display device and Compact Disc according to the invention realize such display by addition of only a small amount of information to a currently available Compact Disc data format.
In a conventional Compact Disc player, various displays are made based on data reproduced from a Compact Disc for convenience in using a Compact Disc.
Displays in the conventional Compact Disc player are based on reproduced data from the disc. They have a TNO (track number and music program number) display and TIME (time) display which are based on data recorded as Mode 1 in the Q-channel subcoding.
There is another type of display utilizing a Compact Disc graphics technique (standard). According to this type of display, line graphic information is recorded by using R to W-channel subcodings. Music words using a character font or a still picture may be displayed.
The display using the Q-channel subcoding Mode 1 can only display a music program number and time information. The display has no function of displaying data concerning a music program such as the title of music, names of the composer and performer in which the listener really wishes to know while he listens to the music program.
The display using the Compact Disc graphics technique requires an external device such as a television monitor to act as a display device and it is basically impossible to display information by a Compact Disc player itself. Besides, since this type of display requires the employment of R to W-channel subcodings which are not normally used, an additional LSI must be incorporated in the display device for performing processing in the R to W-channel the result that manufacturing costs of the hardware increase. Moreover, since the data used in the Compact Disc graphics is not code data but graphic data, this data cannot be utilized for retrieval of data (such as queing). Further, since preparation of graphic data is mostly by hand, preparation of necessary software is extremely labor-consuming. For these reasons, the display using the Compact Disc graphics technique is not commonly employed.
It is an object of the present invention to eliminate the above described drawbacks of the conventional display devices of the Compact Disc player and provide a display device for a Compact Disc player and a Compact Disc adapted for use in a Compact Disc player. The present invention incorporates such a display device to realize a display of contents of a music program such as the title, the names of composer and performer of a music program at a moderate cost by adding only a small amount of information to the currently available Compact Disc data format.